Community Living Rooms are something that I first came across this article in DESIGNER/builder Magazine, but this article in the NY Times caught my eye. I am glad to see that they have caught on, and in LA of all places. I think that it interesting how they were done in collaboration with the transit authority, but still retain their original intent
The idea is to “build an outdoor living room that included a couch and end tables (a bench flanked by planter boxes), ottomans (sitting boxes that could be moved around to create space on the sidewalk), and other seating (three- or four-step stoops that didn’t lead to doors but sat up against walls or fences).
There is a strong intention to make these spaces domesticated public spaces that encourage people to use public space for living. Rather than create some officially designated park space they build off the existing needs and spaces in a community.
The original efforts in Oakland were done illegally and were intended as an anti-gentrification statement as well as a functional solution to a design problem. Despite the dirty g-word the logic makes sense to me and if you read the DB article it might help place it in context.
For those that think that gentrification is not a problem, or inevitable I hope this begins to illustrate that it is not a simple process that is universally bad, or good. It is not about black and white, but shades of gray that should be accepted, but not un-mediated. Community Living Rooms are one intervention that I think helps to mediate the differences in social, economic and cultural uses of public space. It is an innovative design solution that doesn’t just solve a functional issue, but is confronts a social reality.
3 responses so far ↓
visualingual // May 5, 2008 at 12:55 pm
Oh, wow. I love the flexibility of these pieces, and the fact that they bring more greenery onto the sidewalks. I especially appreciate the “stoops.” During an era of [what seems to me] increased control, programming and predictability in public spaces, I’m amazed at this push toward, well, encouraging loitering. Isn’t that what sidewalk socializing is, really?
I find it disarming that a lot of people seem to prefer their communities to be predictable and filled with people like them. I don’t know how to argue against that line of thinking, when my own view seems like such an obvious no-brainer [as theirs does to them, I'm sure].
CityKin // May 5, 2008 at 2:44 pm
While I applaud any attempt, it strikes me as too little too late for LA.
justforview // May 5, 2008 at 3:31 pm
I have never been there myself. But most of what I read about it certainly points towards its failures.
I know people who love it and a lot of the ideas about urbanism that I get into have come about as a result of thinking about LA, for better and worse.
It’s cases like LA that point towards the reality of polycentric, fragmented and contested urban space and the potential assets and advantages to it, as opposed to attempting to maintain a shared vision or identity that often excludes the opportunity for spontaneous and unexpected experiences.
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